Running out of HDD space.....!!

[bluedolphin]

I am running winME on a laptop with 3GB hdd. I've got quite a bit of software loaded now and am getting a warning notice to delete files to free up enough space (approx 200mb) for proper running of winme.( laptop internal hdd is not upgradeable ) So if I buy a peripheral HDD ( usb 30GB ) Leave winme on the laptops HDD and install all my software on the usb drive will that solve my space prob for a year or two (when I am sure this laptop will be kaput). Anyone suggest anyother solution ...dont want to spend more than 150 pounds on this problem.

[smorodina]

I'm not an expert on laptops, but I would have thought the hard drive was upgradeable. It would probably mean re-installing a lot, but surely that would be the best solution? Or am I wrong on this?

[smorodina]

If the problem is the bios won't recognise a large drive you may be able to upgrade the bios.

[j2buttonsw]

I am surprised to see your laptop HDD is not upgradeable, are you sure? If it is, you can buy a larger 2.5 inch hard drive then "Ghost" the contents of your old drive to it then replace the original drive (this is the best option). You need Norton Ghost plus 2.5 inch to standard HDD IDE converters. As stated, there is a risk that your BIOS may not see a large hard drive (very old machines have an 8 GB upper limit) so you may need to flash the BIOS (go to the manufacturers web site and see the upper limit for HDD sizes for your BIOS revision). If you buy an external USB HDD, I would certainly not install any application on it and if you simply move the applications they will no longer work. I would use it as a data drive to store, er, data on. I guess you have the old USB 1.1 on your laptop which makes external HDDs very slow. To speed it up you need a PCMCIA USB 2 card and compatible external HDD.

[bluedolphin]

Here is some more info on my pllight. I went to the computer store and the assistant took out his reference book and checked it ...showed it to me and said that the HDD upgrade box for my particular model had a stroke thru it. I bought the laptop 4.5 years ago and it was the cheapest on offer. I think I'm screwed.

[j2buttonsw]

What make/model is it?

[bluedolphin]

It is a Compaq Presario 1245.

[j2buttonsw]

Compaq don't give a definative hard drive upper limit but similar presarios have larger hard drives so I bet you could put a 10 GB drive in it (but I can offer no guarantee!). It looks pretty straight forward to get the HDD out (click here for the guide: ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/supportinformation/consum
erdocs/MaintServcGd/1245.pdf ) you just need the Ghost and IDE adapters so you can copy your old drive to a new one using a standard PC. You only have a single pcmcia slot so you may have a problem getting a USB 2.0 pcmcia card (the ones I have seen are double pcmcia in size) so if you don't want to risk the HDD upgrade then I think you will be stuck with a slow external USB 1 HDD.